Monthly Archives: August 2013

After the hype, accolades, and Eric Clapton endorsements of the past few years, Gary Clark, Jr.’s ﬁrst full-length record has ﬁnally arrived. With tracks culled from previous EPs, producer Mike Elizondo (Mastodon, Fiona Apple, Eminem) and Clark have crafted a record that illustrates how (more…)

Perri Ink.’s Memento guitar pays homage to the film of the same name. Built to look like the mirror image of a standard right-handed guitar, it has a slightly distressed gold finish, Callaham vintage-style vibrato, three Bare Knuckle Irish Tour pickups, quartersawn maple neck with (more…)

Standing at a crossroads of reggae and jazz, Ernest Ranglin has crafted a unique voice. His mellow-toned and laidback fusion is singular. And stunning. To anyone familiar with Jamaican music and reggae, Ranglin is legend. He began on ukulele, then built his ﬁrst guitar from a (more…)

There are plenty of affordable hollowbodies on the market, but Epiphone’s recent reissue of the Gibson ES-175 is almost a slam-dunk out of the box. Whether your guitar guru is Joe Pass, Pat Metheny, or Steve Howe, there’s a historical aura to the 175 design (more…)

It’s always a treat when a young player arrives on the scene with an understanding of what came before him. Dechter is a traditional jazz player who lets us know right off the bat that he gets it by offering a swinging version of Wes (more…)

Most everyone has seen a department-store-catalog guitar (or two!) from the ’60s or ’70s. With their funky, cool body shapes and smorgasbord of knobs and switches, their looks grabbed ya’. Trouble was, they were usually plagued with cut-rate hardware and electronics, low build quality, and crude playability. The latest creation from Eastwood, the Airline Bighorn, […]

When Vanilla Fudge helped pioneer the progressive-rock movement in the latter half of the ’60s, bassist Tim Bogert played more than one Fender Precision – and usually installed Telecaster Bass necks on them. Bogert preferred the chunkier feel of the Tele Bass neck, which reminded him of ’50s P-Basses. And for him, one instrument, in […]